The old lignite skull

ANOTHER MYSTERY SKULL... THIS TIME AN ANCIENT EUROPEAN WHICH, SAY FRANCOIS DE SARRE AND MICHEL GRANGER, COULD CHALLENGE THE OFFICIAL VIEW OF HUMAN ORIGINS.

0fficially, the origin of the first true Humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) dates back 2.5 million years. Before this time lived other hominids whose bones cannot be confused with those of Homo's lineage. Against this background, we have the 2oo-year old enigma of an 'impossibly' ancient humanoid skull from the mining town of Freiberg, in Saxony, Germany, which, if verified, could be more than 10 million years old - far older than current authorities will allow.

The circumstances of the discovery of the Freiberg skull are, unfortunately, unclear -All that is known is that a man named Loscher who once owned 'The Elephants' pharmacy in Freiberg, had it in his possession some time before his death in 1813; but where he obtained it remains a mystery. It was discovered in Loscher's estate some years later by a city notable called Lechner, who also gave no indication of its origin.

It next appears in the 1859 catalogue of the collection of fossils owned by the Royal Academy of Mines of Freiberg. The skull is designated as entry "number one" with this laconic description: "Internal filling of a human skull with carbonaceous material." In brackets is added: -Probably originally from Bohemia."

Today the skull resides among a collection of objects all of which fall outside the relm of traditionally accepted historical lineage.

Also known as "THE FREIBERG SKULL". Questions abound. It it Millions of years old or is it a fake?

Today it can be located at the Geological Institute for Combustible Rocks in Freiberg. Unlike so many other contentious fossils, there has been no attempt to conceal or disown the Freiberg object. It is on open display in a glass case made especially for it and the samples taken from it for various studies. Its curator Dr Lehmann confirmed: "Yes, the 'skull in coal has attracted the interest of a lot of people. We have had, from the United States, a professor and his pupil, just to see it."

The questions multiply once this 'impossible fossil is studied closely. For example, tests conducted in 1923 by the Ethnographical Department of the Zwinger Museum in Dresden identified samples taken from the skull as "lignite mixed with ferrous ore containing manganese." If the skull is authentic, what fossilization process replaced bone with phosphoric compounds of manganese and iron instead of the more usual surrounding minerals?

Another key mystery is that - according to an analysis made by C Kersten at Freiberg's Royal Academy of Mines in 1842 -its interior cavities were filled with lignite, a type of fossilized peat that we commonly call coal and which formed on our planet during the declining Tertiary period, around 15 millions years ago. A human skull from this period would constitute a sensational discovery; if proved to be older than the period of true human descent, it might even be evidence of visitation by humanoid space travelers.

One explanation for the Freiberg object is that it is a hoax of some sort. This was the theory of Professor Gerhard Roselt, whose study of the skull was published in 1988. Prof. Roselt claimed to have demonstrated "that the skull must have been man-made." Unfortunately, his reasons were quite vague: he claimed that the skull's weight - around seven pounds was too high in relation to its size, and that its eye sockets and forehead apparently resembled modem skulls more than the earliest approved fossilized skulls. In an unpublished work, Herbert Bach, a professor of biology from lena, declares that the skull has the characteristic shape of a modem child's skull. How could such a moderm-looking skull be incorporated in antediluvian material?

Geologist Berrid Nozon (1999) suggested that the skull lay at the bottom of a swamp, and that its interior cavities were filled with peat during the Tertiary age. Microscopic traces of straw and a plant seed were detected in samples taken from the skull and studied by Professor Roselt would seem to invalidate a natural origin. He suggested the skull had been fabricated using resin, lignite and mineral constituents heated to between 100 degrees C and 360 degrees C.

But is this enough to establish the object as a fake? Dr Lehmann refers to two topographic slices through samples which show, clearly, that the lignite mass was composed of concentric layers. He expresses puzzlement: "I am now not able to say how this structure could have developed." if the object is manmade, who was able, 200 years ago, to fabricate such a molten mass and to fashion it- laver on layer, into the semblance of an ancient skull and then melt a mass of lignite into its interior cavities? And, more importantly, how and why'

We have to ask why this strange object has not yet been submitted to the techniques of modern investigation. No x-ray analysis has been done, nor any standard dating test. Given the profundity of the consequences that would follow from an official recognition of the skull's authenticity, we think it is a matter of urgency to resolve this enigma. Ideally, a German laboratory should step forward to conduct the tests and determine, unequivocally, whether the object was a fake or not.

Pardon me, but apparently you missed the press interviews last month with that old French hooker between episodes of "Stargate". Everyone knows the Raelians dropped off earthlings much earlier than the Gao'uld aat around 25,000 years ago.

Additional Information on the Freiberg Human Skull Composed of Coal

Wayne Friar, Ph.D.

Information available on the Freiberg East German skull is summarized. There is no evidence that this artifact contains fossil bone. The skull is not a fossilized human head; nor is it a carving. It was molded by somebody using particles of brown coal and other materials probably prior to the summer of 1813. Therefore it has little or no significance in creation/evolution considerations. There even is a suggestion that it was a late eighteenth or early nineteenth century hoax sculptured as "evidence" that humans existed before the Genesis Flood.

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